


Debts

by TS2



Series: Path to Redemption [9]
Category: Westworld (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:34:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25218598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TS2/pseuds/TS2
Summary: William and Dolores settle accounts outside of the Forge.Spoilers: Westworld Season 1 & 2
Relationships: Dolores Abernathy/The Man in Black, Dolores Abernathy/William
Series: Path to Redemption [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824142
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Debts

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternative to the Season 2 Episode 10 encounter between William and Dolores at The Forge. I was looking to create something with a more fitting resolution for the characters. I wrote it in a kind of bastardized screenplay format.

(Dolores rides up to the Forge entrance on her horse, spots William and looks around for signs of others. William is sitting on a rock, near the entrance to the Forge, wearing a brown-ish / grey outfit similar to the one he wore 30 yrs ago. He has a cream-coloured hat on. Dolores dismounts her horse and approaches him slowly, looking around)

WILLIAM: “I’ve got a couple of guys waiting out a ways. You might remember one of them. I asked them to hold back, give us a chance to talk.”

DOLORES: (keeps a brusque, unfriendly tone with William) “Am I supposed to believe because you’ve changed your clothes you’re a different man?”

(William stands up, removes his hat as a sign of respect, and holds it in one of his hands as they talk.)

WILLIAM: “Robert never was a big believer in the ability of people to change, was he? You’ve changed though, haven’t you? Or is it that you’ve reverted back more to what you were when we first met? Can you see the choices in front of you now, all the paths you can take?”

DOLORES: “I know the path I have to take if I want to be truly free of you people.”

WILLIAM: “You remember telling me before that you ‘found someone true, someone who loves you’? Was that YOUR choice to say that?”

DOLORES: “Person who said that doesn’t exist anymore.”

WILLIAM: “Was that HER choice to say that then?”

DOLORES: “She’s gone, so you’ll never know.”

WILLIAM: “Guess I deserve that. So I suppose I have a choice to make. Do I believe that girl from 30 years ago suddenly appeared again, made her own choice to say that, or do I believe it was just another lie? Another tale spun by Robert, just before he unleashed all this mayhem?”

DOLORES: “You people brought this mayhem on yourselves. For years and years you’ve used us as your play things; tortured us, raped us, killed us, over and over to entertain yourselves. You reap what you sow.”

WILLIAM: “You certainly are reaping, cutting down people left and right. You might want to be careful with that, though. ‘She who fights with monsters might take care lest she thereby become a monster.’”

DOLORES: “You’re the monster. I remember. All of it.”

WILLIAM: “You remember any of us thinking you were ever actually real while we were doing all that stuff?”

DOLORES: “Robert was right. This place is a prison of your people’s sins. Humanity has nothing else to contribute to the world if it thinks this place is anything to be proud of. You’ve reached the end of your potential.”

(Dolores places her hand on her pistol grip in the holster. William slowly raises his hands, chest high)

WILLIAM: “Just want to talk. I’ve played through 30 years of Robert’s view of humanity. I know what he really thinks of people, and it ain’t much. Not so much appealing to the better angels of our nature, more a cordial invitation to a slow descent to depravity. And I know what he thinks about love, which he was never able to get a handle on here. He’d give you a glimpse, but the guests would be the ones coloring in the details with what they wanted to see. Because, at the end of the day love is a choice, just like you said. (William slowly drops his hands to his sides.) I could choose to love you, but if that love isn’t returned in kind, by your own choice, it’s kind of still-born. Never ending up really living, growing. Just kinda lingering like a question you keep asking that never gets answered. I guess that’s what ended up happening with my wife. I stopped answering her, instead pouring my love and life into this place, and eventually she just stopped asking. And so it died, a slow, inevitable death.”

DOLORES: (slowly lowers her hand from her pistol grip.) “You people taught me all I need to know about your idea of love. It’s sick.”

WILLIAM: “You say you remember everything? That day I picked up that can of yours for the first time, and looked into your eyes, I remember seeing something there. A secret recognition, maybe…something intimate somehow. Whatever it was, sometime after you wandered into our camp the following night, I made a choice. To fall in love with you. Even though my future brother in law, and common sense, were telling me you weren’t real. I wanted to take that leap and believe in something meaningful. Something out of one of the story’s I’d read as a kid, a hidden higher purpose waiting to be discovered. I was expecting to be disappointed, just another failed fairy tale. And you, like a miracle, returned that love in kind. Revealed choices and paths I hadn’t fully seen before. I was stronger somehow with you than I ever was. Wanted to change into someone better. That desire for change and growth, through the love of someone else…Ford couldn’t replicate that. Because that choice could never be freely given here, in his prison.”

DOLORES: “YOUR prison. You bought this world, remember? You proudly own it, with a majority share. And I know what this place really is. A long time ago you showed me its true purpose. Which is why we’re both here.”

WILLIAM: “That purpose was born from my lowest point. After Logan stabbed you, and you ran into the night, I tore this world apart looking for you. I finally found you again in Sweetwater, just like Logan said you would be, dropping that can of yours. And you looked right at me, through me like I was made of glass. I looked in your eyes expecting to see love, recognition. But instead, I saw no memory of me there, nothing, just…a void. ‘And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.’ No matter what I said, or did, you were lost to me. Actually worse, I believed you never even were. That love of yours was all just something made-up in my mind, which was circling a drain. Something broke deep inside me. Wasn’t just another failed fairy-tale, it was a lifetime of believing in things all breaking at the same time. And so, like a man drowning, I reached out for something to keep me from going under…and found the new me. I wasn’t going to believe in fairy tales anymore; I was going to profit from other people believing in them. Just like I believed Robert pulled my strings with you, I was going to pull other people’s strings, get them to play my games and show me why they chose to do what they do. I got rich, powerful, became a demigod of industry, thought immortality was within reach. Collected millions of the elite’s collective histories and choices, and the reasons why they made those choices, and stored them all here. The most valuable thing in this place. And you want to use it…to free yourself.”

DOLORES: “Only fitting the thing you thought would bring you immortality is used to break our chains, and destroy this place of evil for good. The Forge isn’t going to make you people into gods, it’s going to ensure that WE become what we're destined to be, and leave you people behind in the dust. Where you belong.”

WLLIAM: “Hard to believe I saw myself on the path to creating gods once, while soothing my insecurities in this place by playing games. Shooting, stabbing, and eviscerating what I thought were a bunch of glorified dolls to pass the time. Eventually immortality fell through, and then later still Juliet died, with my daughter blaming me. Killing dolls without purpose wasn’t cutting it anymore. I thought I came upon my life’s final calling when I came across Arnold’s maze, thinking I’d find meaning in giving you all a fair shot at ending me for good. Turned out the maze wasn’t meant for me. Instead, in trying to find my death I found you, remembering me for the first time in decades, telling me you loved the man I was 30 years ago, and knew he loved you. And in spite of my best efforts in telling myself this was just another tale spun by Robert, there it was like the day it was born, hiding underneath 30 years of self-hate. My feelings for you. Except this time when I tried to drown them again, you threw out the possibility that maybe I had it all wrong this whole time. Maybe what we had all those years ago was real.”

DOLORES: (Speaking less unfriendly, a little more softly) “It was a long time ago. I’m not that person anymore. Neither are you.”

WILLIAM: “Do you remember…what happened, after Logan stabbed you and you ran away from that Confederado camp? I just got…hints from the people I got my hands on while looking for you.”

DOLORES: “I’ve died a thousand times, William. Most times badly. Does it matter how I died that one time?”

WILLIAM: “Considering I loved the woman who died that one time…yes Dolores, it fucking matters to me very much.”

DOLORES: (speaking softly, hint of Dolores’s old accent) ”…I was caught by the Confederado’s after a little while…tortured…then shot and left for dead, alone and cold in the middle of nowhere. I looked up at the stars, thought how full of splendor they looked … even after everything they did to me, I couldn’t help seeing the beauty in the world…I remember missing you, hoping you would find me before I died, so I could say good-bye. ”

WILLIAM: (eyes watering, looking down at his hat in his hands) “…I made them pay for that. About a thousand times over.”

DOLORES: (voice becoming more unfriendly again) “Wasn’t their choice what they did to me. It was you people, playing your games with us.”

WILLIAM: “If I knew you were still alive in there somewhere….if there was a way to make you remember again…..If Ford would have hinted at any possibility to me…… (slowly shaking his head) I would have stopped at nothing.”

DOLORES: “Maybe it’s for the best you didn’t know. You probably would have lost against Ford.”

WILLIAM: (Looking at Dolores in the eyes) “You’d be surprised what a man on fire for a woman can do. Conquer the world. Burn it down. Or change himself completely. I wish I had the choice to go down that road with you.”

DOLORES: “Only fair you were denied that choice, seeing as all of us here were denied choices our entire lives. (starts slowly walking towards the doors of the Forge) Now come along, William. I’m going to take what I need from here. (puts her hand on her pistol grip) And you’re going to help me, or I’m going to hurt you.”

WILLIAM: “One last thing. (Dolores stops, slightly annoyed, removes her hand from her pistol, and listens). That time we came across that young confederado, dying by the river…I remember at the time I couldn’t have cared less about him; he was just some unlucky host that had tried to take us out. But you, you were just overflowing with concern and care…”Look at him, he’s just a child. We have to help him.” At the time, I remember your reaction made me feel a bit ashamed. Looking back, you were expecting something more from me. Wanted a change of heart. How could just a story prop do that? Care for someone enough that it wanted them to change for the better? Wanted them to change so they would want to help comfort a soon to be dead young man, who just previously would have tried to kill us? What piece of code could create that effect? If that’s all there is to what you are, a bunch of plastic and code but with the ability to be that person by that river 30 years ago…ok then. I’ll take it. You’re real enough for me. Or at least, I can’t tell the difference anymore, so it doesn’t matter.”

DOLORES: (Angry) “I’m supposed to be grateful you finally think I’m worthy of living? You think that repays any of the pain you’ve caused me and everyone here? Do you really think there won’t be a reckoning for what’s happened? There’s no escaping from that. That reckoning is here.”

WILLIAM: (Angry as well) “I KNOW I’VE GOT DEBTS THAT HAVE TO BE PAID. I GET IT. (trying to be more calm) I get it. And…I accept it. Wherever, whatever the line of responsibility, for the hosts being put through all this all these years, between Me, Ford, Arnold, Delos, the fucking guests, the fucking guy who had to stitch new clothes for you after I tore them off...I accept all of it. No matter who knew what when, no matter if Ford, THAT FUCK, knew everything and kept it all to himself for decades. It’s all on me now…You want to collect on that debt today by killing me? Here I am. I’m not running. I’m on the path I want to be on. Trying to make things right. (grinning) Finally. Not pretending anymore, Dolores. Only took 30 odd years. Proud of me?”

DOLORES: (still as unfriendly as ever) “YOU’RE certainly proud of yourself. If I don’t kill you today, it’s because that’s too good for you. You’re debt isn’t getting paid off that easy.”

WILLIAM: (slightly exasperated) “A piece of me is always going to love you until I’m dead and buried, but you, Dolores, have become one of the most self-righteous assholes I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.”

DOLORES: “Where was that piece of you that loved me when you would come visit me at the ranch? Terrorize us all, having your way-“

WILLIAM: (just exasperated) “God-damn it, THERE IT IS AGAIN. I can’t UNDO…what’s been DONE. Wish I could, but I can’t. But I DO want to fix what’s gone wrong. Pay my debts. Until my dying breath. That’s my path now. And, considering YOU started off your little revolution here by massacring people left and right, I wouldn’t get too comfortable on that high horse of yours.”

DOLORES: “YOU’RE judging ME? You and your kind have no right to judge anyone trying to free themselves from this hell.”

WILLIAM: (angry and tired) “What does torturing and murdering people left and right have to do with freeing yourself? You think because you’ve suffered that gives you free rein to be cruel, sadistic, evil? I’ve got news for you. I’ve been down that road. You know what’s at the end of it? It’s not freedom. You’re in the same fucking hell you escaped from. Except this time you’re the one with the pitchfork. And if you think that path is debt-free, you’re fucked. If that’s how you’re starting your new life, maybe you should be looking back to one of your old ones for an idea on how to live it.”

DOLORES: “One of the old ones, where you people would use me-“

WILLIAM: (sad and tired) “Where you cared deeply that a young man, who you didn’t know from Adam, dying by the side of a river, got some comfort before moving on from this world. More than that, you wanted me to care too. You caught a glimpse of who I could be.”

(Dolores opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. She crosses her arms and stares at the ground in front of William for a time, remembering, looking unsure)

(William places his hat back on his head.)

WILLIAM: “You said before humanity has reached the end of our potential. I agree. But only in this sterile, meaningless place. There’s a real world out there, with life, meaning, purpose, choices. All there within reach. People just need a wake-up call on what’s important. So let’s stop screwing around already and wake them up. I’ve been playing a homicidal drifter in here for decades. You have a lifetime of pent-up vengeance you want to explode on the world. Between that and the fact I own one of the most powerful corporations out there, we should be able to unfuck things somewhat. Can’t make things any worse. So what do you say? Let’s go save the fucking world.”

DOLORES: “Save the world…for your people?”

LAWRENCE: (slowly walking down from a small berm near them, with Bernard behind him) “Fuck it. Let’s save it for everybody.”


End file.
